Steppenwolf brings a sort of clarity to Murakami's 'Kafka on the Shore'
No doubt about it: When a play or movie is based on a book, the new work should be able to stand on its own, whether or not it attempts to be faithful to the original text.
I'm not sure if the Steppenwolf Theater's new production of "Kafka on the Shore," the 2002 novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, passes that basic litmus test. Those unfamiliar with Murakami's fiction - dealing in talking cats, gleefully skewed pop-culture references and various parallel realms of existence and consciousness - are almost certain to be baffled somewhat by the Steppenwolf production, set to run through Nov. 16.
Yet as someone who admires Murakami's work and considers "Kafka" quite possibly his masterpiece, I have to insist that writer-director Frank Galati has done a masterful job of distilling Murakami's themes and bringing some sort of clarity to the story. For those who've read the book, the play will bring certain elusive points into focus, without diminishing the overall magic. And for those who haven't read the book, surrender to Steppenwolf's craft and art and it may well end up a moving experience in any case.
The plot concerns the interlaced stories between Christopher Larkin's Kafka, a 15-year-old runaway trying to escape an Oedipal curse, and David Rhee's Nakata, an old man who lost the ability to read and write as a child in a mysterious incident during World War II, but found instead he had gained the ability to converse with cats.
Like the book, the play bounces back and forth between story lines, with Steppenwolf trouper Jon Michael Hill, fresh from "Superior Donuts," playing Kafka's alter ego, Crow. The theme of selves divided - sometimes irreconcilably - runs through the work, and Galati has edited it concisely to bring the elusive connections between Kafka and Nakata into sharper relief. Sex, violence and blood serve as catalysts, and before long Aiko Nakasone's Sakura, a young woman who could be Kafka's sister, and Lisa Tejero's Miss Saeki, who could be his mother, are drawn into the swirling eddy, as is Andrew Pang's Hoshino, a simple, straightforward and blithely comic trucker who befriends Nakata.
The talking cats are played in human form, with a minimum of wardrobe touches and self-cleaning gestures to suggest their feline natures, although as in the book the sophisticated Siamese Mimi makes an indelible impression, here as played by Mary Ann de la Cruz in a fur hat and thigh-high boots.
In one of Murakami's most insurgent concepts, he adopts a couple of "capitalist icons" to serve key roles as well. Johnnie Walker, yes, the Scotch mascot, plays a person killing cats for no good reason - perhaps as a stand-in for Kafka's otherwise unseen father. Then none other than Colonel Sanders, the fried-chicken mogul, turns up as a pimping facilitator essential to making the bridge between Kafka, Nakata and their fates.
As with any great work of art, the meaning of "Kafka" - in any form, novel or play - is complex, grasped more intuitively than logically. Yet, when it comes right down to it, it's as elementary as being about the damage we do each other and yet the healing power we have over each other - about memory, loss and forgiveness.
Those are timeworn artistic obsessions, and the uninitiated might well ask, so why the talking cats and the ethereal connections between characters and the murderous Johnnie Walker and the lecherous Colonel Sanders? Because that's what gives Murakami's story its elegant enchantment from moment to moment. As the Colonel himself says, "You want everything to be nice and straight, try living in a world with a triangular ruler."
This isn't the best Steppenwolf production for acting. Murakami's characters tend to speak with a droll matter-of-factness, and a number of them are muted emotionally, Kafka most of all, although Hill makes up for that as Crow and proves himself a skilled communicator in gesture and nuance. Fellow trouper Francis Guinan bites into Johnnie Walker and the Colonel with relish, although Pang's Hoshino is a bit too broad.
Yet all in all this is a fine reworking of a difficult, challenging, complicated text, one that achieves the rare distinction of dissecting the original without killing it. Hey, at least Galati left out the fish and frogs falling from the sky. That will just have to wait for the movie version.
"Kafka on the Shore"
Location: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., Chicago
Times: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays; 2 p.m. Wednesdays Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 and 12; runs through Nov. 16
Running time: About two hours, with a 15-minute intermission
Tickets: $20-$70
Parking: Free lot adjacent to the theater
Box office: (312) 335-1650 or steppenwolf.org
Rating: For teens and older
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="/multimedia/?category=1&type=video&item=206">Clip of Steppenwolf's 'Kafka on the Shore' </a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>